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Fretful Angela Merkel braced for Russian cyber-attack on German election

Bojan Pancevski, Berlin

September 17 2017, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

Angela Merkel has been warned that hackers linked to Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin could attempt to manipulate next week’s electionSASHA MORDOVETS

Every evening, German newscasters compete to deride next Sunday’s general election as the most boring yet. But behind the scenes in the glass-and-concrete cube of the federal chancellery, Angela Merkel’s aides heave a sigh of relief that another day has passed without Russia launching a cyber-attack on the vote.

A vast amount of data was stolen from the German parliament in 2015 by a hacker group, associated with the Kremlin’s intelligence services, that was also linked to interference in the US election and the cyber-assault on Emmanuel Macron, the French president.

German officials fear that the stolen data, which exceeds 16 gigabytes and contains email details of MPs including Merkel, could be leaked to one of Russia’s propaganda platforms.